The question started when I went to adapt “The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe.” Can Madison, in our modern-day sensitivities, make the fat-jokes that Archie Goodwin does throughout the script? And my answer is… yes. But isn’t that fat-shaming? No. Not in this context. And that’s what we’re going to explore.
Perhaps you’ve heard the term “punching down.” While it has become a buzz phrase lately, it actually has been around for a long time. Back in my early improv training days, we all were reading Viola Spolin’s book, “Improvisation for the Theater” originally published in 1963 (no, I’m not so old that I have a first edition!). One of the things she taught, that still resonates in my head all these years later, is the reason “punching down” in comedy doesn’t work. Her example was something like this: An old, fragile man is walking down a city street and slips on a banana peel. That is not funny because he is feeble, aged and that fall might have really hurt him. We see that and feel sympathy. Now, her example goes on, suppose you saw Richard Nixon walking down the same city street (he had been VP by then, just go with it). If Nixon were to slip on that banana peel, that would be funny. Why the difference? Firstly, he is a much younger man (age 50 in 1963), and he is a man of power. He is “higher” than the old man. Higher than the audience watching it. And seeing him slip on a banana peel knocks him down a few pegs. That is “punching up.” Making the joke happen at the expense of someone higher than you. Making the joke against the old man would be “punching down,” finding humor is someone less fortunate than you.
So how does this translate to Nero Wolfe? Because in modern day, don’t we find it horrible to make a joke about someone who is overweight? Depends if we are punching up, or punching down. Wolfe is a brilliant man. He is arrogant about his intelligence, and generally looks down his nose at everyone. He is curt, dismissive, and abrasive. So making jokes at his expense is punching up. By putting himself above everyone else, he becomes a target. However, this is where the “fat jokes” need to be specific to Nero Wolfe. If someone just spouted jokes against anyone who was overweight, a generalization, that would be punching down. But by focusing the jokes at Wolfe directly, they are jokes against Wolfe, not a particular group of people.
Let’s examine Wolfe. He revels in making intelligence jokes against Madison. Wolfe is actually punching down. Madison isn’t as intelligent as him, and, being his employee and subservient to him, makes all of his jokes and derogatory comments appear mean. Therefore, when Madison starts to fire back with fat jokes against Wolfe, she is punching up and at the same time, leveling the playing field. Taking air out of his tires. Humbling him as he slips on the banana peel.
Too often today, jokes are blanketly banned without looking at the context in which they are being told. Such jokes are marked “taboo” without any context. So now the self-appointed guardians of “what is allowed to be the butt of a joke and what is not” are waiting with a hair trigger to react vehemently against anyone who steps across this arbitrary line. Which is why Madison, no matter how hard Wolfe attacked her through jokes and snide comments, couldn’t bring herself to fire back. She has taken up the cause that jokes aimed at someone’s weight are “wrong.” Wolfe insists that she has no right to make that decision on his behalf. Who appointed her to this position where she self-righteously “protects” Wolfe from fat jokes? Certainly not Wolfe. And how dare she presume that he will be wounded by such humor? She is not him. And he does not need her to tell him what is funny or what is hurtful. Basically, no one asked you.
If you’re going to play it safe in comedy, you probably should be writing for children. Because joke writing for adults is a place where, as Wolfe says “Feelings may get hurt.” Not that the jokes are intended to hurt people, but that people’s perspective on their own world may be challenged, and when faced with something that challenges people to think differently about something, there are some people who’s feelings will, indeed, get hurt.
-Chrisi (aka Madison)
